Archer Gets a Clue
by nauticalgal
Summary: What happens when Archer figures out what's going on with Trip and T'Pol? The fics I've seen work from the premise that he has known all along, and is choosing to look the other way. But there's nothing in the show to suggest that; he appears to be quite genuinely perplexed, right up through "Bound" and "Demons" and "Terra Prime." So...what happens when he finally figures it out?
1. The Admiral

**1\. The Admiral**

The debrief concluded, Gardner sent everyone out, motioning that Archer himself should stay. So Archer sat back down across the table from the Admiral, and waited to see what it was that Gardner wanted now.

"Jon, I need to know. Is there any truth to the rumors?"

Archer had no idea what Gardner was talking about. "What rumors?"

"The rumors that your first officer and your chief engineer are … romantically involved?"

Archer shrugged and shook his head. "Those rumors have been floating around since the Expanse," he said, feeling mildly annoyed to be dealing with this again. Still.

"But is there any _truth_ to them?" Gardner insisted. To Archer's vexed expression, he said "Terra Prime may not have destroyed Starfleet Headquarters, but they did succeed in one thing: they drew a lot of attention to us, and have put us under a very uncomfortable media microscope. I very much doubt that you follow the tabloids, but we have people who do, and the stories about Starfleet's 'sexcapades' and speculation about exactly why the prim and prudish Vulcans disapprove so strongly of both Starfleet generally, and personnel exchanges like T'Pol's specifically, are … well, they're quite salacious," Gardner took up a PADD, and handed it to Archer. "Just one example."

Archer took the PADD. On it was the latest cover of the most well-known of Earth's tabloids, _Untold Stories_ — redundantly taglined, "the stories no one else will tell!" A silhouette of Enterprise was overlaid with a badly mocked-up image of Trip and T'Pol in a ridiculously compromising clinch. T'Pol was arched backwards over Trip's arm with half-closed eyes, showing a disturbing amount of exaggerated cleavage, over which Tucker was leaning with a hungry expression. Archer was sickened to think that stoic and reserved T'Pol and good-natured Trip — both of them professionals, who had gone well above and beyond any reasonable call of duty many times, could be portrayed so. Underneath, the garish headline read "Aboard the Starship Intercourse!"

Archer shuddered. Why would anybody read something like that?

"We need to be able to make some kind of definitive statement on this," Gardner said, as Archer shoved the PADD and its offensive display across the table at him. "If there's any truth to the rumors, we may need to take some sort of disciplinary action against your officers. Something to address the lingering disapproval of Starfleet and our operations."

Archer just stared. Disapproval of _Starfleet_? By people who would be _dead_ now, if not for his crew and their sacrifices? It was a good thing Paxton was in custody; Archer was suddenly angry enough to beat the man senseless. Maybe worse. And _disciplinary action?_ Against _Trip and T'pol_ — both of whom had received an assortment of commendations and medals as a result of their actions in the Xindi war, the incidents with the Augments at Cold Station 12, and later in dealing with the Klingons and their "plague," and in their respective actions that had prevented a war between Vulcan and Earth, and another between Vulcan and Andoria, not to mention bringing down the corrupt Vulcan High Command? Gardner was going to discipline _those two officers_ over _unsubstantiated gossip?_

"Admiral," he began — and had to pause because his voice was shaking so badly — "Without _Starfleet_ , specifically without _Enterprise_ , and _Commander T'Pol_ , and _Commander Tucker,_ Earth and its tabloids would probably no longer exist! Moreover, those same two _highly decorated officers_ have just been — in fact, they are _still going through_ a horrific and very public ordeal engineered by a man vicious enough to suggest that that beautiful child — who was a _clone_ , that neither of my officers had any role in creating — was an _abomination_? Do you really intend to pile on to _those two people_ , _right this minute_ over what are quite literally _tabloid rumors?_ " Archer was trembling and spitting with fury. He was half-inclined, in the absence of any more suitable target, to knock Gardner on his ass. Which would likely entail some disciplinary action of its own. He gripped the table so hard that his fingers ached.

Gardner's expression softened, and he nodded sympathetically. "I'll take that as my answer," he said, rising. Archer stood up, too, stiff and abrupt. "Jon," Gardner said gently, "I had to ask. And I thought it better to ask you than either of them."

Archer was not placated. "Please tell me that you have no intention of burdening Trip or T'pol with these tabloid insinuations."

"Oh, they've done far more than insinuate," Gardner observed with a sigh. "But no, I do not intend to take the matter up directly with either Commander Tucker or Commander T'Pol at the present time. For now, I'll accept your word as their commanding officer that nothing untoward is going on. And I will deal with the media on that basis."

"Good," Archer said curtly. He turned on his heel and stalked out without being dismissed. He headed at first for the 602 club, before checking himself. It would not do Starfleet any good for its most celebrated officer to start a brawl in a bar, and he genuinely felt in danger of it right now. He turned instead for the nearest gym.

He needed very badly to punch something.


	2. The Itinerary

**2\. The Itinerary**

At first, the plan had been to bury Elizabeth in Mississippi, near Trip's family. But the media frenzy surrounding Trip and T'pol and their child stubbornly refused to die down, and Trip began to worry that even if they could put adequate security measures in place to discourage grave robbers, his parents might never be allowed to grieve in peace for the granddaughter they had never known; namesake of the daughter they had lost too soon. They decided instead to take Elizabeth to Vulcan, and place her alongside T'Pol's parents.

Malcolm made their travel arrangements, booking three different couples — none of them Starfleet officers, and none of them Vulcans — on three different trips that arrived at Vulcan by three different routes, and buried the arrangements in just enough layers of security that the media would waste too much time digging them out and patting itself on the back to realize that it was chasing will-o-wisps until Trip and T'Pol were already gone. Then he booked round-trip transport for himself and Hoshi to Risa for the duration of their shore leave, with only the moderate privacy precautions any middling-high-profile individuals might take with their travel arrangements.

Neither Trip nor T'Pol were happy about it. "We have to go through Risa?" Trip protested. The three of them were dining with Archer at his table aboard Enterprise, because it was a perfectly ordinary and unremarkable thing for them to do, and because Malcolm could easily secure it. "Malcolm, Risa is the last place I feel like going right now!"

"That is precisely why you're going through Risa," Malcolm said. He was holding his fork, and he had cut up his food, but he hadn't eaten a bite. Sitting at the Captain's table made him entirely too jittery to eat.

"Even if our images had not been all over the news," T'Pol observed over the rim of her teacup, "I doubt anyone would believe that I am a human named Hoshi Sato."

"No one will have to," Malcolm said. "Except for the crew, who all have appropriate security clearances, you two and Elizabeth will be the only ones aboard. All of the other passengers are fictitious. Once you're on Risa — where, please let me point out, they are obsessive about protecting the privacy of their guests — I'll arrange the remainder of your trip and let you know."

Trip sighed, and adjusted the sling where it was chafing his neck. Just a few more days, Phlox said, and his shoulder should be as good as new. But for now, it remained an annoyance. Adding cloak-and-dagger secrecy to his list of things to worry about would be one more annoyance. It would probably raise his blood pressure and cortisol and whatever-the-hell else Phlox monitored to try to keep track of his stress levels, and then Phlox would lecture, which also would not help, and then he would suggest some sort of injection that Trip would refuse because he was tired of being medicated, and then around and around they would go. Just thinking about it made him dizzy, and faintly ill.

At least Phlox wasn't going with them to Risa. That was a good thing. Maybe. His cortisol levels had been awfully high lately, so, he wasn't really certain.

He wasn't really certain of anything, right at the moment. Except that he didn't want to go to Risa, which was the one thing it looked like he was going to have to do.

Figured.

Archer had not said much; his cortisol levels were probably pretty high too, Trip guessed. Still, it was uncharacteristic of him not to carry his weight in conversation. Now, he cocked his head at Malcolm and said, "Do you think it's wise to use yourself and Hoshi as cover identities for Trip and T'Pol?"

Malcolm shifted uncomfortably and adjusted his grip on his fork. "Plenty of Starfleet personnel head for Risa whenever they have the opportunity. Most of the fictitious passengers traveling with Trip and T'Pol are listed as Starfleet personnel. Why would it be unwise?"

Now it was Archer's turn to look uncomfortable. He glanced at T'Pol, and then at Trip. "No reason," he said with forced lightness. Trip frowned at him. If he had not known Archer half so long, or half so well, he might have missed that Archer reacted to his frown by shifting gears, just a little bit. "It's just," he said, and to Trip's experienced eye, the man was clearly scrambling, "What if one of you wants to go down to Earth for shore leave? Won't the press get wise in a hurry?"

"I wasn't planning on taking any leave, so I'll be aboard ship," Malcolm said. He was trying not to feel the criticism — but as with Archer, Trip knew the armory officer well enough to recognize the faint grimace that betrayed Malcolm's defensiveness. "Hoshi is planning to visit her parents, but I've arranged an alias for her as well. No one's watching Hoshi closely at the moment, so it ought to go unnoticed."

"Malcolm!" Archer scolded, "Of course you're going to take leave!"

"It's probably not a good idea at this point, sir," Malcolm said apologetically. "The transport for Risa leaves tomorrow morning, and it's probably too late to remake the travel arrangements. I'm afraid I'll just have to stay aboard."

Archer gave his armory officer a tight-lipped glare. Malcolm gave him the faintest fleeting attempt at an innocent smile. For the first time since Elizabeth's death, Trip laughed. "Cap'n, I believe you've been outmaneuvered."

Archer gave him a sour look. "Fix it, Malcolm," he said sternly, "That's an order."

Trip wondered vaguely what Archer's real reason was for wanting the travel arrangements changed — but he was too worn out, and too heavily medicated right now to work through it in his head.

Anyway, at the moment, he had enough problems of his own to puzzle over. Like, how was he going to explain to Chef that he meant no offense to Chef's catfish and pecan pie, which he was certain — he noticed, fleetingly, that he was at least sure of something — had been served specifically to please him. He just wasn't very hungry lately. But also, he lacked the energy for uncomfortable confrontations. So he cut another bite of catfish, and choked it down.

And wondered just how long a layover they would be facing on Risa.


	3. The Lose-Lose Scenario

**3\. The Lose-Lose Scenario**

Archer came into sickbay at 0300 ship's time, and found Phlox peering through a microscope, wide awake and humming happily. He straightened and turned as the doors slid open, and greeted the Captain in a voice far too chipper for the hour. "Well, hello Captain! To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Archer leaned against a counter, blinking determinedly, trying to clear his vision. It was intensely annoying to feel as if he were about to keel over, and yet not be able to sleep a wink. "You're the only other person on the ship who's awake, that doesn't have to be."

"Well, that isn't technically true," Phlox said. "My duty schedule is adapted to account for my physiologic needs, and I am 'on duty' right now."

Archer glanced at the microscope, and the array of prepared slides scattered around it. "Am I interrupting anything?"

"Oh, no, nothing critical. I am all yours, if you need me." Phlox began cleaning up his slides, placing them carefully in a storage box.

"Just couldn't sleep, and wanted some company," Archer said.

Phlox closed the box and slid it into a rack behind the microscope. "I'm due for a dinner break," he suggested. "Perhaps you'd like to accompany me to the mess hall, where we can sit more comfortably?"

"Sure," Archer said, and followed Phlox out.

In the empty mess hall, Archer sat with a cup of decaf while Phlox selected a sandwich and a slice of pie from the stasis unit. "So, Captain," Phlox said, sitting down with his food. "What is keeping you awake at the nadir of your circadian cycle?"

"The usual," Archer said, fighting the urge to lay his head down on the table and fall asleep. If he couldn't sleep in his own bed, he wasn't going to allow himself to sleep instead slumped over a table in the mess hall. What would that do to morale? Just think of the rumors. They would probably involve lots of Andorian ale. Which actually didn't sound like a half-bad idea right now. Maybe a little Andorian ale would help with the sleeping. Although Phlox would disapprove.

"Nightmares again?"

Archer nodded. The escalating tensions with the Romulans were weighing heavily on him. Insomnia and nightmares were among his most difficult symptoms.

"What is it this time?"

"The Illyrians." Archer said, cradling his coffee. His voice was rough — too much emotion; too little sleep. "I can still see their captain's face, when he asked me why I was doing this."

"You did it because you felt you had no better choice."

"Before we went into the Expanse, I would have insisted that there is always a right choice and a wrong choice, and a good man should always make the right choice."

For a moment, Archer thought Phlox was going to try again to talk him into a course of medication that would relieve his symptoms somewhat. But Archer didn't want to stop feeling guilty about the Illyrians. He didn't really want his symptoms relieved, at least not that easily.

But Phlox didn't go down that road. "Tell me, then," the doctor said, "What was the 'right choice' that you should have made on that occasion?"

"There wasn't a right choice," Archer replied. "It wouldn't have been right to lose what was probably our only chance to save Earth. And it wasn't right to take the Illyrians' warp coil. Both choices were wrong."

"If you learned anything in the Expanse," Phlox said, "surely it was that not all choices are right-wrong, or win-lose. Sometimes the only choices are bad ones. Sometimes all of your options are lose-lose."

"I wish someone had told me that before we ever went into the Expanse," Archer said bitterly.

Phlox considered. "You are concerned that there will be war with the Romulans."

"It's a virtual certainty. The question is, can we put together an alliance that will hold against them?"

"And you are concerned that there will be others who are not prepared for the toll it takes, having to make these best-of-a-bad-set-of-options kinds of choices."

Archer nodded.

"Well. Perhaps you will be the one to find a way to teach them that lesson, so that they will be prepared when they do encounter those circumstances," Phlox said.

"Maybe you're right, doctor."

"Hmmm….Captain."

"Yes?"

"I think there's another important lesson to be learned here."

"What's that?"

"Everyone makes regrettable decisions sometimes, even in situations where there is a clear right choice and wrong choice," Phlox said. "None of us can claim that we do not. The question after that becomes, will we let those regrets poison us, so that we descend into increasingly selfish and destructive choices, or not?"

Archer looked over his coffee cup at Phlox. The doctor looked so alert. Archer's eyes were gritty and sore, and his body ached with weariness. He tried to make sense of what Phlox was trying to tell him, but thinking was increasingly difficult.

"I think the only way to prevent it is to learn to forgive ourselves," Phlox said, "and let it teach us to forgive others when we find them wanting."

"That sounds awfully pat," Archer said.

"Only until you try to put it into practice," Phlox said.

Archer stared down at the table, and then abruptly pushed himself to his feet. "Maybe you're right, doctor," he said a second time. Maybe not, but Archer was too exhausted to sort it out right now.

"Good night, Captain."

Archer tossed his coffee cup in the recycler. "Good night, Phlox."

He went back to bed. And finally, he slept.


	4. The Transfer Request

**4\. The Transfer Request**

When he got his first officer and his chief engineer back from Vulcan, they didn't really look any better than when they'd left. They buried themselves in work — not an easy task, when the ship had already spent quite some time in spacedock, but Trip seemed to be doing better at it than T'Pol. Archer supposed that was to be expected; on a ship of exploration that wasn't doing any active exploring, the science department was probably unavoidably slow. As a result, T'Pol seemed to spend a lot of time alone in her quarters, meditating.

Archer wasn't sure that was entirely healthy. So, he made an effort to draw her out.

"You wished to see me, Captain?" T'Pol stepped through the door into his ready room and stood just inside. The door slid shut behind her.

"I have a request from a couple of crewmen from the Annie Cannon to transfer to Enterprise. I've arranged to speak with them. I'd like to have your input."

"Very well," T'Pol took the seat across the desk.

Archer handed her a PADD. "These are their service records."

T'Pol took the PADD, and scrolled through the records.

Archer turned his display so that he and T'Pol could both see it, and touched a key. "Hoshi, put us through," he said.

On the screen, two young sciences division crew — one male, one female — appeared. "Ensign Souris, Lieutenant Marks," he said, "I'm Captain Archer, and this is my first officer, Commander T'Pol."

Marks said "Hello, Captain," in a very collected manner, but Souris goggled at them. Archer wasn't sure whether the ensign was impressed with their status as saviors of the planet, or with the fact that he was face-to-face with a real live Vulcan. Maybe both.

He asked them a few questions, and they seemed intelligent enough, if still a bit green. Unfortunately, at that point, he tried to bring T'Pol in on the interview.

"Commander T'Pol is not just my first officer, she's also my science officer. So, I'm sure she has some questions for the two of you."

T'Pol glanced at him, and then at the two young people on the screen. "Lieutentant Marks, it says here that you have completed a certification in comparative exobiology. Can you tell me how A.E. Hodgkins determined that the termites of Loracus Prime were, in fact, native to that planet and not transplants from another world?"

From that point, the conversation quickly devolved into scientific jargon that Archer could only partially understand. Which troubled him, because the two young crewmen did not seem to be keeping up very well. But he could hardly say, "T'Pol, go easy," after he'd invited her to sit in, and then turned her loose on the two would-be transfers. So T'Pol continued asking what seemed to be increasingly difficult questions, and the two prospective crewmen spent an increasing amount of time exchanging apprehensive looks.

Finally, he took the PADD and typed in the message box, "Don't frighten them away unless that's what you mean to do" and handed it back to T'Pol.

She read the message, arched an eyebrow at him, and said "Thank you, Lieutenant, Ensign. I believe Captain Archer has some additional questions he would like to ask."

"I think we're about done," Archer said, smiling in what he hoped was a reassuring way. "I guess you've probably got a pretty good idea at this point who you'd be working for," he said, with a slight laugh. The two young crewmen responded with uncomfortable laughter of their own. "Is there anything you'd like to ask me?"

Souris glanced at Marks, who shook her head at him. "No, Captain, thank you for talking with us."

"Are you sure?" Archer said. There was something they wanted to ask — or at least, that Souris wanted to ask that Marks didn't.

"Jerri," the young man said, imploringly — an oddly familiar way for him to address her, Archer thought.

She shot him a quelling look, and then said "Captain, we'd really prefer to serve together, if possible."

Judging from the look on Souris' face, that wasn't exactly what he'd been hoping for. "I can't promise anything," Archer said, "but it might help if you could tell me why."

"We've served together for three years,"Lieutenant Marks said, "And we work really well together."

As reasons to change ships together went, it was paper-thin. Which meant that probably…"You do know that Starfleet frowns on fraternization within the same chain of command," he guessed.

Marks kept her composure, but Souris' face concealed nothing; he might as well have said aloud, we wanted to stay together because we _are_ together. And his gaze went immediately, transparently, to T'Pol.

Marks apparently decided that at this point, a measure of candor might be their only hope. "Sir, we thought perhaps that you might take a more…liberal view…in such matters."

"I see," Archer said. "Lieutenant, perhaps you should get your information from more reputable sources." Souris looked crestfallen, and even Marks wilted a little bit. "We'll be in touch," Archer said, and killed the transmission.

He sighed, and looked across the desk at T'Pol, who was still looking fixedly at the blank display.

"T'Pol? Is something wrong?"

"No," she said, without looking at him. "If you'll excuse me, Captain."

She stood abruptly and left.

Maybe it was the still-raw wound of losing Elizabeth; maybe it was the weariness of dealing with the gossip. But it bugged him.

What possible reason could there be that T'Pol would not look him in the eye?


	5. The Promotion

**5\. The Promotion**

"Hoshi. Where's Trip?" Archer asked; he couldn't raise the engineer on the comm, which was odd. He was beginning to think Trip must have left the ship for some reason.

"Hold on, Captain…he's…well, he's somewhere around the starboard impulse engine," Hoshi said. "I think he may actually be _in_ the impulse engine."

"Would that explain why I can't raise him on comms?" Archer asked.

"Yes, Captain. We don't have comms equipment inside the engines," Hoshi said.

"I'll just track him down in person," Archer said, and headed for the starboard-side stern — where he did indeed find the area around the impulse engine in considerable disarray.

Archer frowned at the pieces of his impulse engine scattered around the corridor. For Trip, retreating into his engines was as much an indicator of stress as T'Pol's retreat into meditation. The disassembled engine looked, to Archer, like a whole lot of stress taking itself out on his ship. Grief, still? Or did it have something to do with Trip's most recent rebuff of Admiral Gardner? Maybe both? Maybe something else?

If it had to do with Trip's recent conversation with the Admiral, Archer would soon know.

Trip came crawling backward out of the guts of the engine, and stood scrubbing his hands with a towel that looked unlikely to be of any use for cleaning up. In fact, from the look of him, a half-hour soak in a tub full of degreaser might achieve little more than a good start. His hands, his face, and his hair were blackened with streaks of grease. He had tied the arms of his jumpsuit around his waist, but his black undershirt had not escaped unscathed: it was soiled with lighter gray soot-streaks, torn across one bicep and missing at least one button.

"Big job?" Archer asked.

Trip shrugged. "Had to pull the guts out of the driver coil and thrust nozzle assembly." He rubbed one blackened hand across the bridge of his nose, leaving a dark smear on top of what was already there. "Sorry to keep you waiting. Takes a while to get out of there."

"Shouldn't I know about a job like that before you start it?"

Trip shrugged. "It's not actually a 'big job,'" he said. "Doesn't have much impact on operational capacity while we're in spacedock."

"Trip. You're filthy."

"Well, it is just about the dirtiest job on the ship," Trip acknowledged.

"How long would it take you to clean up?" Archer asked.

"Maybe an hour," Trip said. To Archer's dismayed look, he said, "This stuff can be really hard to scrub off. And the scrub that takes it off always irritates my skin, so if it's all the same to you, I'd rather not clean up until the job's done." He examined his hands critically. "Gonna take weeks to get it out from under my fingernails. Kinda funny, really. Right when I'm itching like crazy from the scrub, I risk making it worse all over again, 'cause it's still under my nails."

"Huh," Archer said.

"Is this gonna take very long?" Trip asked. "Because we're kinda short-handed in engineering right now, and I hate to leave my people hanging."

"Not too long," Archer said. "Let's go…somewhere…we can talk."

"'Course," Trip said brightly, as if he didn't look like he had just crawled out of a grease fire.

Archer didn't want to take Trip to his quarters or his ready room, not in his present condition, but there weren't a lot of other options for private conversations, and the Captain's mess was completely out of the question. In the end, Archer settled unhappily on his ready room, where he tried not to cringe as Trip dropped into one of the chairs. _This stuff can be really hard to scrub off._ Well. It would fall to Trip's department to make sure it got done, at least. Trip's short-handed department. Of course.

"Trip, Admiral Gardner has asked me to talk to you about the _Vostok_."

Trip ran his tongue around the inside of his jaw and looked out the window at the spacedock frame that cradled _Enterprise_. "Not gonna let that go, is he?"

" _Vostok_ needs a captain, and you're due a promotion. Why would you turn it down?"

" _Vostok_ , sir? She's eight years old and barely makes warp 3. What am I gonna do on _Vostok_?"

Archer regarded the engineer, covered head to toe in grease. He supposed it was to be expected that an engineer who had crawled through the guts of the first warp 5 engine for four years might be less than thrilled about an older ship with an obsolete engine — but that didn't make the offer a poor one. He attempted to sound cheerful. "Well, maybe once you get hold of her, she'll do a lot better than warp 3."

Trip gave him a narrow-eyed look of disgust. "They aren't offering to make me chief engineer," he said, "and captains don't spend their time crawling over engines."

"So you're planning to be a chief engineer forever, then? This is the pinnacle of your Starfleet career?"

"It is until something _better_ comes along," Trip said emphatically. " _Vostok_ ain't exactly a step up from anything."

"Trip." Archer hated being put in this position. For one thing, Trip was right: after Enterprise, _Vostok_ would feel like a huge step backwards, even if it was a promotion. For another, Trip had apparently made his mind up, and Trip with his mind made up was harder to shift than a dead-drunk Orion male. And, Trip was his friend. But Gardner was his superior, and he was right that Starfleet needed to be developing its officer corps — especially if this business with the Romulans turned into a shooting war. "I know it's not _Enterprise_ ," Archer acknowledged, "but frankly, I don't see that job coming open any time soon. Nor _Columbia_. And NX-03 hasn't made it off the drawing board yet, so you can't be holding out for that."

"I'm not holding out, sir. I'm happy where I am."

"For how much longer? Turning down your own command when it's offered has the potential to be a career-killing move. There's no guarantee you'll be offered another anytime soon."

"I'm not worried about it."

The man could be maddeningly laconic. Anyway, what had happened to the ambitious young man who drove himself mercilessly to become the youngest chief engineer in Starfleet, the first chief engineer on a warp 5 ship? Where was _that_ Trip? "Are you going to be worried about it when Malcolm is promoted over you? Travis? Kelby?"

Trip laughed. "That'll be a long time coming."

He might actually be right about that. But Archer couldn't shake the feeling that there was no truly compelling reason for Trip to turn Gardner down. Which meant that whatever reason he had must not be truly compelling. "I think you should take the promotion."

"Is that an order?"

"No. I won't order you to do it. Frankly, I'm not anxious to lose you. But I think you should take it anyway."

Trip stared out the window, shaking his head. "What about T'Pol?"

"T'Pol? What about T'Pol?" What could T'Pol possibly have to do with this?

"She wasn't offered a command. Was she?" Trip's tone was accusatory.

"Not that I know of. Not in Starfleet."

"She's not going back to the Vulcans!" Trip said with conviction.

Archer wasn't sure what any of this had to do with the _Vostok_. "What about it?"

"She's senior to me. So why offer me the promotion?"

"You've served longer in Starfleet," Archer said. "So as far as that goes, you're senior. Plus —"

"Plus she's Vulcan," Trip said, when Archer didn't finish the sentence.

"Yes. She's Vulcan." And in the wake of the Terra Prime attack, putting a Vulcan — specifically, putting _that_ Vulcan — in command of a Starfleet ship might be a little more provocative than Starfleet could afford to be, right at the moment.

"She's Starfleet, just as much as you or me."

"Trip…you can't tell me this is about you taking some sort of principled stand on order of seniority. And anyway, that's not the only factor that goes into a decision like this. Which, by now, you should know."

Trip shrugged, looking for all the world as if the whole business was just beneath him.

Archer began to feel as if Trip was determined to die aboard _Enterprise_. "Okay. You tell me, then. Pick a ship. Any ship in the fleet, except _Enterprise_. I bet if there were one you wanted, Gardner would let you have it."

Trip gave up staring out the window, looking down instead at his hands. He looked up again at Archer, no longer insouciant, no longer laconic. His blue eyes were intense. "There is no ship in this fleet or any other that could tempt me away from _Enterprise_."

"Not even _Columbia_?" Archer said, still trying to provoke some sort of honest response from his chief engineer. From his friend.

The expression that flitted across Trip's grease-smudged face was so deeply pained that Archer immediately regretted the dig. But why should it cut so deeply?

"Not even _Columbia_ ," Trip said hoarsely.

Archer had no gambits left to try. Gardner was just going to have to find somebody else for the _Vostok_. And every other ship in the fleet, apparently.

"I, uh…I better get back to that impulse engine," Trip said. He stood abruptly and left.

Archer watched him go. It didn't make sense. Okay, maybe _Vostok_ was no plum post, but it would almost certainly have been temporary. NX-03 was bound to make it off the drawing board soon, and if there were a war, to be ready for launch pretty quickly. Who better to command her than an officer with years of deep space experience plus command experience, who already knew his way around an NX-class ship? If what he wanted was a warp 5 ship, taking the _Vostok_ was a step up, not a step down. And even if they managed to avoid a war… it just didn't make sense.

There had to be something else going on. But what could it possibly be, that his closest friend, the one who had gone with him through the Xindi war and countless other scrapes, his truest brother-in-arms, would feel that he couldn't confide in him?

Trip was unreasonably stubborn sometimes, but that wasn't a matter for confidences.

Trip was impulsive sometimes, but that would argue against him determinedly staying put on _Enterprise_.

Trip was an engineer at heart, but that shouldn't override his ambition to such a degree as this.

Trip had once struggled with understanding alien cultures on their own terms, and in their own contexts — just as Archer had, at first. But they had long since outgrown that tendency. Both of them. All of them. The whole crew was long past that. And anyway, it shouldn't apply to this.

What did that leave?

Archer rubbed his eyes wearily, and reviewed their history. He could only come up with one other thing, and like their ability to encounter and come to terms with alien cultures, it wasn't something that ought to be in play in this situation. The only other thing he could come up with that might be affecting Trip's decision-making to this degree was … a woman. Women had been one of Trip's greatest weaknesses for as long as Archer had known him.

Especially — once they were in deep space — _alien_ women.

Except for that business with the Orion women, which had just been really strange. He never had puzzled that one out completely. True, he'd been a little off his game for a couple of weeks after that incident, but he'd never revisited it once he was fully recovered. They'd had too much else going on, and by then it hadn't seemed very important. How had that gone exactly? His memory of that time was still just the slightest bit vague and fuzzy. The Orion women's pheromones had made all the men loopy and suggestible and violent, except Phlox who became dangerously sleepy, and all the women sick and headachy, except T'Pol who seemed to be completely immune because she was Vulcan, and…

Archer swore.

And then he swore some more.

And when he ran out of all the choice words he'd ever learned on Earth, he started on Vulcan…

…and Andorian…

…and Klingon…

He'd learned so much in deep space.

Except, it seemed, how to look right at the two people he trusted most and see what was really going on.


	6. The Kriosian Proposal

**6\. The Kriosian Proposal**

It took three full days for Archer to stop feeling a surge of violent anger every time he thought about his first officer and chief engineer. During that time, he avoided them to the extent possible. At the end of three days, he decided he might be able to address the situation without completely losing his cool.

Maybe.

It would depend, in part, on whether they lied to him to his face. That, he wasn't sure he could deal with in any calm or rational manner.

So he had them both go to his ready room. And he sat in his quarters for a few minutes after they arrived, watching on a closed circuit, curious whether they would do anything to give themselves away while they were alone. On the one hand, he found the eavesdropping distasteful. On the other hand, he hated to confront them without any more proof than his own surmise. Even if it was a surmise he felt very certain of.

T'Pol arrived first, and stood looking out the window, with her hands clasped behind her back. Trip arrived moments later, stopping briefly just inside the door.

She turned to look at him, and he nodded acknowledgment to her. "He called you in, too?"

She looked disdainful. "Is the answer to that not obvious?"

Trip sighed, and flopped down into the chair next to the door — the one that was still streaked with grease from his earlier visit. "I suppose it is," he said sardonically.

T'Pol arched an eyebrow at him and returned to gazing out the window.

"You comin' to movie night?" Trip assayed. The crew who had to remain aboard ship while they were in spacedock had grown restive, and Archer had asked Trip to put together a movie night in hope of helping morale.

"Perhaps. What movie are you planning on showing?"

"I thought maybe a prison break film. 'The Great Escape,' maybe, or 'Escape from Alcatraz.'"

Oh, well, those would be great choices for a group of people who already felt unreasonably confined. Archer made a note to bring it up later.

T'Pol's eyebrows came together in consternation. "Humans lionize individuals who escape from prison?"

"Sure," Trip said. "Why not? They're both true stories."

"Humans lionize individuals who successfully evade justice?"

 _It's a good thing perplexity isn't technically an emotion,_ Archer thought, _because if T'Pol gets any more perplexed, she'll break a sweat._

"It's not always justice," Trip said. "In 'The Great Escape,' those guys were prisoners of war. They had a sworn duty to try to escape."

"So, prison does not always mean a place of incarceration for criminals," T'Pol guessed.

"Even when it does mean that, people who escape aren't necessarily evading justice," Trip persisted. "Remember when the Klingons sent Cap'n Archer to Rura Penthe?"

"Under Klingon law, Captain Archer was justly condemned."

Trip stared at her, narrow-eyed. "You're really impossible sometimes, you know that?"

"That statement is illogical," she said. "However, despite being illogical, you are often predictable, and your choices can sometimes be used to deduce your state of mind. Perhaps choosing a prison break film indicates that you feel trapped in some fashion yourself."

Trip leaned back in the chair and cast a "deliver me" look at the uncaring ready room ceiling. He sat back up. "Maybe I do," he said.

"Does this have anything to do with your decision to turn down the promotion to captain of the _Vostok_?"

 _How does she even know about that?_ Archer wondered. They must have discussed it. Nothing in their conversation thus far had been out of the ordinary for Trip and T'Pol — just the usual verbal sparring — but it did seem odd that Trip would have discussed the _Vostok_ with her. It had to have been Trip; Archer himself had kept that conversation private. Perhaps Trip had just sought advice from T'Pol about it? Somehow, that seemed unlikely. Yet clearly, she knew.

Other than that, though, there was nothing in this conversation to indicate that their relationship was anything other than it had always been. Archer began to feel a little guilty about eavesdropping; about having suspected them at all.

" _Vostok_ doesn't need a new captain," Trip was saying. "It needs to be decommissioned and scrapped to build something worth flying."

"Have you considered that at some point, someone will probably say that about _Enterprise_?"

"Hell, at some point, somebody will probably say that about _me_ ," Trip said. "Not yet, though."

His objection to the _Vostok_ really was an objection to the ship itself, then. Nothing more than that.

Archer reached for the screen, to kill the display before heading for his ready room to talk to his two senior officers about something completely innocuous, something that would never even hint at his suspicions.

As he leaned forward, though, he saw Trip haul himself to his feet and walk around the ready room desk to where T'Pol was standing.

Archer hesitated.

"Well," Trip said, reaching one arm out to the wall behind T'Pol's head, "In any event, I'm not quite ready to start calling myself a bird in a gilded cage."

T'Pol turned to face him. Archer sat back a little. They were certainly in each other's personal space now. But that could just be Trip testing her boundaries.

T'Pol raised her face to Trip's. "So you do not yet feel that you lack freedom, happiness and contentment?" she said, completely deadpan.

 _Did she just…_ Archer wondered in shock.

Trip threw back his head and laughed uproariously. "We need to check the stars," he said, peering out through the window. "I'm pretty sure the universe is set to collapse the day that you start understanding human idiom!"

"Any foreign language can eventually be mastered, given sufficient sustained effort," T'Pol said.

"You just go right on tellin' yourself that, darlin'," Trip said.

But for all his amusement, for all their banter, they had done and said nothing incriminating. Archer fumed. He had really hoped to be able to confront them from a position of certainty.

Frustrated, he killed the viewscreen.

He wondered briefly if T'Pol would understand him if he told her that it was time for him to fish or cut bait.

* * *

They were both still standing by the window when he came into his ready room. They moved, then, but only to let him around the cramped room to his desk. "Thank you for coming," he said. "There's something we need to discuss."

They arranged themselves at the end of the desk, and waited with nothing more than ordinary curiosity.

"The Kriosians have contacted us, with an eye to establishing diplomatic relations, and possibly joining the Coalition of Planets," Archer said.

"The Kriosians…" Trip was instantly wary.

"Yes. Trip, Princess Kaitaama has expressed a particular interest in… renewing your acquaintance."

Trip laughed uncomfortably. "Has she."

"Oh yes," Archer said, not quite winking at Trip. "Of course, she's First Monarch of the Kriosian Empire now. So, we'll have to tread carefully."

"We will?" Trip looked worried.

"Oh yes," Archer said earnestly. "On the one hand, it could be bad for diplomatic relations between Krios and the Coalition if First Monarch Kaitaama were to feel…" he paused, "…snubbed…" another pause, to let the word hang in the air, "but on the other hand, we really don't want the First Monarch to get the wrong idea."

Trip looked increasingly ill. "The wrong idea."

"I've had Hoshi do some research. Turns out that, well…" he gave Trip his most sympathetic look, "there's a strong likelihood that the First Monarch already believes we'll be formalizing Krios's entry into the Coalition through a traditional Kriosian marriage treaty."

Trip felt his way along the wall to the chair he'd been sitting in earlier, and fell into it.

"We're trying to make it clear that that's not really what we have in mind — without upsetting the negotiations, of course. But if that is how it turns out, well…it wouldn't be entirely bad," Archer said. "There's not a formal ceremony. You'd just have to go on a six-month tour of the Kriosian Empire with your new bride — but after that, we can probably negotiate your return to Enterprise for all but one month out of every year. And who knows? It's entirely possible that we'll be able to leverage your new status as royalty to advance the Coalition even further!"

Trip had leaned forward with on forearm on the desk, and the other on his leg. He was sweating, and grimacing in pain.

"Trip? Do I need to call Phlox?"

"Maybe," Trip said, through gritted teeth.

"What's wrong?"

Trip's gaze went to T'Pol.

Archer looked at her, too. "Do you know what's wrong with him?"

"Perhaps," she said coolly.

Trip really did look bad; he looked as if he might pass out in the floor. Archer moved around the desk, just in case he needed to catch the engineer. "Trip. Breathe," Archer said, genuinely concerned.

Trip's breath hissed through his clenched teeth. He was looking daggers at T'Pol. "You have to stop," he said thinly.

Archer looked at T'Pol. "Stop what?"

"I do not know, Captain. I do not believe that I am actively doing anything."

 _"Gaaaaaah,"_ Trip fell forward out of the chair, collapsing onto his knees on the floor. Archer dropped to the floor also, barely catching him. He held Trip by the shoulders, while the engineer struggled to breathe.

"T'Pol!" Archer said, "What does he mean, 'You have to stop?'"

"I said I do not know what I could be doing. I do not believe I am doing anything."

"She knows," Trip gasped.

 _"T'Pol!"_

T'Pol sat slowly down on the floor, in a meditation posture, and closed her eyes.

"Cap'n," Trip gasped.

"At least call Phlox!" Archer told T'Pol.

"I can't…marry…Kaitaaaaaaagh," Trip fell sideways against Archer, who laid him on his back on the floor. He lay there panting heavily.

T'Pol hadn't moved.

 _"Somebody_ tell me _what's going on here!_ " Archer bellowed.

Trip just moaned softly.

"It is as Commander Tucker has said," T'Pol said matter-of-factly, without opening her eyes. "He cannot marry Kaitaama, or anyone else."

"Because…" Archer prompted.

T'Pol opened her eyes, regarding him evenly, and said nothing.

"Because she'll kill me, I guess," Trip said. He seemed to have caught his breath, a little. "At least, that felt a lot like dyin', just then."

"T'Pol?" Archer asked him. "How is T'Pol going to kill you?"

"Got me," Trip said.

Archer stood, advancing on T'Pol. "I want answers, Commander."

"Commander Tucker cannot marry the First Monarch, or anyone else, because he is mated to me," T'Pol said evenly, looking up at him from the floor. "Is that better, Commander?"

"I think my head's gonna hurt for a week," Trip muttered from the floor. He had thrown one arm over his eyes.

" _'Mated'?_ " Archer said.

"Yes," T'Pol said. "Commander Tucker and I share a mating bond. I expect you know what that is, from having carried the katra of Surak."

Archer thought about it. Actually, he did know. But — "You married Koss," he said.

"An unfortunate mistake," T'Pol said. "Our marriage could never have worked. I was already, by that time, bonded to Commander Tucker."

"How long do we have to be bonded like this before you just call me 'Trip'?" Trip protested weakly from the floor.

"It is not unusual for Vulcan couples to remain formal with one another for their entire lifetimes," T'Pol said.

"I'm not Vulcan, sweet cheeks."

"Obviously."

"Times like this, I'm not so sure about the 'couple' thing either," Trip sulked. T'Pol did not reply.

Archer moved around the desk and sat down in his own chair. Trip pushed himself into a sitting position on the floor. T'Pol stood up, taking exactly the same position she had been standing in when Archer came into the room.

 _Before she married Koss…_ that placed the beginning of this thing during or shortly after their time in the Expanse. And a Vulcan mating bond… "It shouldn't be possible for a Vulcan to form a mating bond with a human," Archer said.

"Nevertheless," T'Pol said.

"This has been going on since the Expanse," Archer guessed.

"Yes," T'Pol said.

Trip moved from the floor back to the chair. He was no longer gasping, and his color was improving. "Cap'n. Are you serious about the Kriosians?"

"No," Archer said absently. "They haven't contacted us."

Trip gave T'Pol a thin-lipped glare. "He played you, sweet cheeks."

"If you persist in calling me that, I shall begin calling you 'Charles.'" She managed to freight the name with a planet's worth of Vulcan disdain.

"'Charles' is my granddaddy," Trip said dryly.

"Obviously. At any rate, I believe you have also been 'played.'"

"Shut up, both of you," Archer snapped. "Does this have anything to do with the neuro-pressure?"

"Oh I think it probably has everything to do with the neuro-pressure," Trip said.

T'Pol said, "Perhaps."

Archer looked from one to the other and said, "So, it was the neuro-pressure that resulted in the formation of the bond?" If that were true, then what was going on was a lot more innocent than he had feared. Unfortunate, but innocent.

They both squirmed a bit. At length, T'Pol said, "Neuro-pressure is a very intimate procedure, but I do not believe that a mating bond could have been formed through neuro-pressure alone. At least, not between a Vulcan and a human."

"So, the rumors were true, then?"

Trip looked blank, and T'Pol did not react either. "The rumors that there was more going on between the two of you than a relaxing Vulcan massage."

"Not at first," Trip said. "Not for a while."

"How long of a while?"

The two of them exchanged a look. "Um. Just how much detail are you gonna want, Cap'n?" Trip said.

Archer considered. At this point, he had little to lose by being blunt. "How long have you been sleeping together?"

"I do not believe we have ever slept together," T'Pol said, "not more than briefly."

"He means having sex," Trip translated.

"Oh." T'Pol suddenly looked evasive.

 _So much for her mastery of idiom,_ Archer thought. But of course he couldn't admit to having overheard that conversation, at least not yet. "Well?"

"That started while we were all doing Major Hayes's training sessions," Trip supplied frankly. "After we picked up that pod with one of the sphere-builders in it."

"I see." They had been in the Expanse…about six months at that point. So that was "how long of a while," then. He gave Trip a hard look. "Six months. Is that some kind of personal best for you? Or maybe personal worst? Certainly didn't take you that long with Kaitaama."

Trip reacted with confusion, followed by comprehension…followed by staring determinedly down at his hands, folded together on the desk. He still had black grease under his fingernails.

"Captain," T'Pol said, "Do you mean to imply that Commander Tucker…initiated…our sexual relationship?"

"Didn't he?"

"No."

Archer's mouth fell open. It was several seconds before he could think what to say. What he finally managed was, "What the _hell_ were you thinking?"

"I think she was thinking pretty much the same thing that just about killed me a minute ago," Trip said. "She was jealous."

"Of who?"

"Corporal Cole."

Archer stared at Trip in disbelief. "You were sleeping with _Corporal Cole_?"

"No! Contrary to what everybody seems to think, I don't run around the galaxy looking for all the action I can get!" Trip protested. "There was nothing to be jealous of!" He gave T'Pol an accusing look. "Either time!"

Archer shook his head and turned his attention back to T'Pol. "Jealous or not, why would you do something so _utterly_ irresponsible?"

Again, T'Pol looked evasive.

"You didn't seem surprised when you thought it was _me_ ," Trip muttered.

"I _wasn't_ surprised when I thought it was you," Archer said in annoyance, earning a belligerent glare from Trip. "T'Pol? Commander?"

"Captain," T'Pol said slowly. She was watching Trip apprehensively. "I think…there is something I need to discuss with Commander Tucker before I can discuss it with you."

"You're not pregnant?" Archer said. Trip looked startled.

"No," T'Pol said. Her Vulcan calm was not holding; she looked…worried. "Please, Captain."

"Fine," Archer said. "I'll be on the bridge."

He stood and made his way to the door, where he turned and looked back at the two of them. They were regarding one another warily.

"Don't be long," he said.


	7. The Bad News

**7\. The Bad News**

Archer sat down in his captain's chair on the bridge and stared, unseeing, at the scrolling views of the space dock that it was currently displaying. A Vulcan mate-bond. Well. That explained why T'Pol could not look him in the eye after their interview with Marks and Souris, and it explained why Trip, against everybody's better judgment including his own, had turned down a promotion he should have accepted.

It wasn't the answer Archer could have hoped for. He couldn't simply tell them to knock it off and behave like proper Starfleet officers or face discipline. He couldn't simply have one of them reassigned — apparently, they had tried that solution themselves, when Trip transferred to _Columbia_ , and that had clearly not worked out. There was no best-case scenario here that he could see, for either of them. Unless they wanted to leave Starfleet and go live together quietly somewhere, and neither of them had shown any indication of that, at any point.

He sifted through his brain for any information he might have about Vulcan mate-bonds. A Vulcan mate-bond, if he understood the shadows and outlines of information Surak had left in his mind correctly, was a psychic bond often — not always — formed by married Vulcan couples, generally after long intimacy and the birth of at least one child. The connection was typically powerful, generally permanent; bonded Vulcans never divorced, and seldom remarried after the death of their spouse.

 _Oh, Trip, what have you gotten yourself into this time? Do you understand that you may never get out of it?_ It worried him, now, that he had not seen any definitive indication of romantic involvement between them when he was eavesdropping. Maybe they were trying to behave like proper Starfleet officers. But if they were bonded…Surak seemed to indicate that this was a connection that required regular … maintenance … for the continued mental health of both parties.

Trip couldn't have even known this was a possibility. It was likely, in fact, that T'Pol had not known of the possibility until too late. She had, after all, made a good-faith effort to marry Koss — and been forced to acknowledge that it wouldn't work, just as Trip had later been compelled to return from _Columbia_. Modern Vulcans, if Archer understood matters correctly, considered the mate-bond as taboo a subject as mind-melds. And even if T'Pol had known of the possibility of forming a mate-bond, she might not have expected to form one with a human — or, she might not have expected to form one so quickly. Because this had certainly happened quickly, if it began six months into the Expanse and was firmly cemented by the time they returned. That was far more quickly than it typically happened for married Vulcans. Maybe the fact that Trip was human, with less-well-disciplined emotions, had contributed to that. Also, maybe the neuro-pressure had played a role in establishing the intimacy necessary for the bond. Which was something no one could have known at the time; the return of the katra of Surak and the demise of the High Command, which seemed to be facilitating more open communication about and acceptance of Vulcans' innate psychic abilities, was more recent than that. And even if the neuro-pressure had laid the groundwork, this bond had formed in less than a year. Maybe the pressures of the Expanse had also contributed?

Archer couldn't puzzle it out. The information Surak had left him was incomplete, but what he had suggested that this simply should not have happened.

But, as T'Pol had said, "Nevertheless…" They were definitely bonded. T'Pol's anger and jealousy, and perhaps fear — all strong emotions, apparently poorly controlled, despite her outward appearance of calm — had been debilitating for Trip, through the bond. Were her emotions poorly controlled because she was bonded to a human? Was that what was wrecking her emotional discipline? But Trip was an engineer — a brilliant engineer — so wouldn't his mind be more disciplined than an average human? What was going on here?

Archer stepped back mentally from the situation, trying to look at it with a birds-eye view. What had happened, from that perspective, was that a couple of people who were probably just taking comfort in one another during a difficult time had just gotten in way over their heads.

Well, that story was an old one in any culture. And it didn't mean that their initial decision to get involved with one another had been an excusable one. One bad decision had led to a raft of complications, like such things so often did.

The ready room was heavily soundproofed, in order to protect the sorts of confidential and high-security communications and conversations that could be expected to take place there. So Archer was surprised to hear raised voices coming from that direction. Or, rather, one raised voice — Trip's voice. Archer couldn't make out any individual words, just volume — but he did make a note of the fact that the room's soundproofing had a limit. Also, he wondered if he should intervene. He could not imagine that Trip might actually become violent, but he was also surprised by the shouting. T'Pol could take care of herself, though. Couldn't she? Or would Trip's strong emotions be just as debilitating for her as hers had been for him?

There were not many people on the bridge — just a single crew of workers upgrading the communications and science consoles — but they began exchanging glances. Odd enough for one officer to be yelling at another — odder yet for the ship's second officer to be loudly berating the ship's first officer. "As you were," Archer growled at them, and they rededicated themselves to their task.

After a few minutes, the shouting died down. When it had been quiet for a few minutes longer, Archer went back to the ready room door and touched the annunciator. The door slid open.

Trip was sitting in the grease-smeared chair, with his elbows on the desk and his forehead resting on his fists.

T'Pol was curled against the far wall. Crying.

T'Pol was actually _sobbing_.

The rage that Archer had expected to feel, that he had spent three days carefully and consciously packing away, resurfaced suddenly. _I hope the two of you realize you're putting on a clinic for why fraternization is a very bad idea,_ he thought, but he didn't say it. _There are always unintended consequences._ It would have felt cruel, to add that observation to whatever Trip had said to leave T'Pol in that condition.

He walked around his desk, fished through the drawers until he found a pack of tissues, and went to T'Pol.

She accepted the tissues.

"Do you need anything?" he asked.

She gulped. "I need…" she nodded at Trip, "for him to calm down."

"I am calm," he muttered.

"You are not," she accused, and he turned his head and gave her such a baleful look that Archer believed her instantly. Apparently the ability of very strong emotions to affect them through the bond went both ways.

"Trip," Archer said sternly.

Trip shook his head and went back to staring at the desk, his forehead resting on his clenched fists.

Archer turned back to T'Pol. "Can I get you something? Some tea?"

She nodded miserably.

Archer went back to his desk chair and sat down heavily. He steeled himself. Whatever had upset Trip to the point of yelling at his bonded mate loudly enough to be heard through soundproofed walls, angrily enough to reduce a Vulcan to tears, couldn't be good news. He touched the comm panel. "Phlox."

"Here, Captain."

"Come to the bridge. Bring a cup of chamomile tea…"

"All right…" Phlox sounded uncertain.

"…and some sedatives."

There was a brief silence at the other end of the comm. "Of course, Captain. I will be right there."

Archer looked from Trip to T'Pol. Dragging this out wasn't going to make it easier.

"Tell me," he said.

Neither of them spoke.

 _"Now,"_ Archer said.

Still, neither of them spoke.

T'Pol sat hiccuping into a tissue.

Without lifting his head, Trip said, "You tell him, or I will." His voice was rough.

T'Pol gulped a sob. She uncurled enough to adopt her meditation posture, and made a visible effort to pull herself together.

Archer waited.

"Captain," she said, and hiccuped again. "Do you remember the _Seleya_?"

"Of course."

"The trellium exposure caused extensive neural damage."

"Phlox cleared you to return to duty," Archer observed.

"He did. Although he told me at the time that a full recovery could take several months."

Archer waited.

"I was at the time also suffering from pa'nar syndrome, and from the aftereffects of my encounter with Rajiin," T'Pol said.

 _So,_ Archer deduced, _the damage may have been cumulative._ But he simply waited for her to continue.

"All of those things combined to impair my judgment," T'Pol admitted. "Although I did not realize it at the time. Indeed, I did not realize it until much later."

"All right." Archer was not without sympathy; his own judgment had been impaired, after all, at the hatchery — and he himself had not realized it. His crew had been driven to mutiny to remedy that situation.

"As a result, I made a…" she gulped, and looked at Trip. "…terrible mistake."

Trip's breathing had grown ragged, although his pose had not changed. Archer supposed that being referred to as someone's terrible mistake while acting under impaired judgment would make any human angry, especially if the consequences were a lifelong and irreversible psychic bond with the person whose 'mistake' you'd turned out to be.

The comm beeped. "Captain, I am on the bridge," Phlox said.

"Wait," Archer said. He walked out to the bridge, where he found Phlox standing in the with a cup of hot tea, a set of hyposprays, and a concerned expression.

Archer took the tea and the hypos, leaving Phlox with only his concerned expression. "Wait here."

"Captain, if there is a need to administer sedatives, I should —"

 _"Wait here,"_ Archer repeated, and walked away.

In the ready room, he laid the hyposprays on the desk, and handed T'Pol the cup of tea. He took one of the hypos, and adjusted the dose to what he calculated would calm everybody down without knocking them out. He pressed it to Trip's neck and dosed the engineer, who gave him a vicious look.

"One more look like that, Commander, and I will confine you to quarters for insubordination."

Trip looked back down at the desk. His shoulders relaxed fractionally, and his clenched fists; the sedative was having some effect.

Archer carried the hypo to T'Pol, who shrank away from it. He tilted his head at her and set his jaw; he would not be brooked on this. She hiccuped, and relented. He dosed her, too.

Then he went back to his chair.

"There's more," he guessed. Could it get worse? Neither of them looked as if they had come to the end of this, yet. "Tell me."

T'Pol took a sip of the tea and tipped her head back, letting it run down her throat. The sedative seemed to be helping a little. She took a deep breath, and looked at him. Her eyes were anguished. "Captain. Please…" she glanced at Trip. "I cannot bear more anger."

 _Does she mean from Trip,_ Archer wondered, _Or from me?_ "Tell me all of it," he said.

"The trellium…gave me access to feelings…to emotions…that my discipline had suppressed." She said. She sipped the tea again, and breathed slowly. "I liked them. The emotions. I didn't want to lose access to them."

Archer experienced a sudden, terrible foreboding.

"We had a supply of trellium-D on board, that you refused to use once its toxicity had been established." T'Pol paused again. Trip had tensed up all over again. Archer eyed the hypospray, and wondered whether he would have to dose everybody again. T'Pol continued, her voice shaky. "I devised a way of injecting it directly into my bloodstream. No one knew." Her eyes filled again. She blinked, and the tears rolled down her face.

Archer tamped down on the rage. Yes. Yes, it could get worse. Much worse. He felt himself shaking, and he began to understand why Trip had so completely lost his temper. He was rapidly sliding that direction himself. But that wouldn't do anybody any good. If there were ever a need for a cool head, surely it was now. He took a deep breath, and put his anger to one side. "So, from the point where we encountered…" he almost said _Seleya_ , but then amended it to "Rajiin, your judgment was continually, probably increasingly, impaired."

She looked away from him; away from Trip. "Yes." She said.

"And it was during that time that you…propositioned…Trip."

She gasped. Archer looked at Trip, who had tensed up again.

He picked up the hypospray and gave Trip another dose. Trip flinched, but didn't look up. One more, Archer reflected, and he'd probably have to consult Phlox. He didn't want either of them unconscious, but he also wanted to retain control of the situation.

"Keep going," he said.

T'Pol had lost control again. She had set her tea on the floor next to her, and buried her face in a tissue. Archer picked up the hypo.

Trip raised his head. "I wasn't her only _bad decision,_ Captain," he said viciously. Archer marveled at the potency of adrenaline-driven rage against Phlox's sedative. "I knew something was wrong with her at Azati Prime."

T'Pol curled around herself protectively, and buried her face in her knees.

 _Azati Prime._ He had gone, hoping to destroy the Xindi weapon, and left T'Pol in command. The reptilians had attacked the ship. If the Xindi council hadn't called them off, Enterprise would have been destroyed. As it was, the ship had been severely damaged, and lost a lot of her crew. Including Crewman Taylor, whose death had hit Trip particularly hard.

Trip was still looking at him. "Cap'n," he said. "That was when we lost the warp coil."

The warp coil.

The Illyrians.

It sank in.

Archer stood up, unable to sit. He paced. The faces of the crew who had died in that attack rose to his mind unbidden, accusing.

And the face of the Illyrian captain, asking him "Why are you doing this?"

 _I have no choice._

He felt himself perilously close to losing it.

"Confine yourselves to quarters," he said. "While I decide what to do."


	8. The Doctor

"Trip," Archer said, as the engineer was leaving the ready room. Trip turned to look at him. "Send in Phlox on your way out."

Trip nodded, and left. T'Pol slipped out as well, far enough behind him that they would not directly encounter one another.

Archer went to the window, watching as the space dock workers bustled around his ship.

Phlox came in, looking troubled. "Is there a problem, Captain?"

Archer could not bring himself to engage in any niceties at all. He opened with, "Did you know that Trip and T'Pol were sleeping together?"

Phlox hesitated, glancing after the departed officers. "Yes."

"When?"

"I have known since the Terra Prime incident," Phlox said.

Archer was surprised that Phlox had not known before that. "How did you find out?"

"Commander Tucker made an… admission… after we found out about Elizabeth. I don't believe he realized he was doing so at the time. He seemed to take it for granted that I already knew, although I did not."

Archer's voice was sandpaper-rough. "Did you know that T'Pol was addicted to trellium-D?"

Again, Phlox hesitated. "Yes."

"When?"

"She came to me for assistance after the battle at Azati Prime," Phlox said, with obvious reluctance.

"And you didn't tell me?"

"I considered it confidential medical information."

"When it materially affects the ability of my senior officers to perform their duties, especially in command of the ship, it's not _confidential medical information,_ " Archer said angrily. "You should have told me."

There was a long silence. "I am sorry, Captain," Phlox said at last. "You are, of course, correct."

Archer prowled the small space, ducking under the low ceiling struts. "She started using trellium after the _Seleya_ ," he said. "By the time we reached Azati Prime, she was taking out our disagreements on my desk. I thought it was just stress. We were all under a lot of pressure, then."

"We were."

"I left her in command, Phlox. I left her in command, and I went to try to destroy the Xindi weapon."

"I remember." To his credit, Phlox did not remind him that no one had wanted him to go.

"We lost so many of the crew. We nearly lost the ship. Phlox. That was when we lost the warp coil."

Phlox stood watching him. Listening. Looking increasingly concerned. "Captain —"

"If I had stayed…if I had sent someone else…"

"I don't think —"

"Maybe those crewmen wouldn't have died," Archer said, viciously. "Maybe we wouldn't have lost the warp coil. Maybe I wouldn't have had to leave all of those people stranded in the Expanse. But I left a drug-addicted Vulcan in charge while I went to play the hero — "

"You left your first officer, whom you believed to be of sound mind, in charge of the ship, which you believed was safe, while you went to try to complete the mission without risking any life but your own," Phlox countered. "If you had sent another member of the crew — Commander Tucker, perhaps? — and he had been killed, without achieving the goal of the mission, you would be no less hard on yourself. And Enterprise was surprised by a superior force. There is no guarantee the encounter would have been avoided or turned out differently had you been aboard. Captain, you know this."

"Do I?" Archer stopped pacing. He reached up and grabbed one of the ceiling struts with both hands. "She was using trellium," he said. "She nearly lost the ship. She did lose the warp coil. Phlox. _What if I didn't have to strand those people in the Expanse?_ "

"You cannot change that decision now, Captain. You can only decide how it will affect you going forward."

"Going forward. Right." Archer laughed bitterly. "How do I let this affect me going forward, when I have to decide what to do about the fact that my two most senior officers have both been engaging in conduct unbecoming over an extended period of time? What do I do about that, Phlox?"

"I would give you my answer," Phlox said, "but you would probably tell me it is 'too pat.'"

"It is too pat," Archer said. "I can't just forgive everybody and let it go. That's no answer. There's no justice in that for the people who died or were marooned in the Expanse."

"If it is any help at all, T'Pol is under a doctor's care now, and her addiction appears to be under control," Phlox said. "So, in that case at least, a measure of absolution does not have the effect of further endangering the ship."

"I'm sure the Illyrians would be very comforted to hear that. I'm sure Crewman Taylor feels much better about it now."

"You cannot help them at this point, Captain. All you could do, perhaps, would be to avenge them on the person you now seem to see as responsible for their predicament: Commander T'Pol. Is that what you wish to do? Shame her, and Commander Tucker with her? Punish her, and by extension him, for a decision that cannot now be remedied? That is certainly one option. It would not be justice for the Illyrians, exactly, and I question whether it would be just toward Commander T'Pol and Commander Tucker…but would it make you feel better? Would it take care of your guilt and your nightmares, to do so?"

Archer sat down again at his desk. "I don't know, doctor. I really don't know what I should do."

"I believe your human physicians take an oath," Phlox said, "perhaps you will find it helpful. 'First, do no harm.'"

"You know that's too pat, Phlox."

"Only until you try to put it into practice, Captain."


	9. The White Space

Author's Note: Just one chapter remaining after this one. Can past mistakes be fixed? T'Pol tries to find out.

 **9\. The White Space**

In her quarters, T'Pol sat in front of an unlit candle.

She needed to meditate.

She was afraid to meditate.

If she meditated, _he_ might be there.

But as she sat trying to master her emotions, she slipped involuntarily into the blank meditation space, where everything fell away.

Everything except _him_.

She felt him, heard him, before she saw him. "Oh, great," he said. "This is _exactly_ where I want to be right now." He walked across in front of her, looking around at the emptiness.

 _I can't help it._ But that would only provoke him. "I need to meditate."

"Well, I need to go tear apart a machine somewhere," he said. "So I guess we're both just out of luck." He sat down facing her. "You realize, this is probably the end of both of our careers."

She didn't respond.

"Mine was probably over anyway." he shook his head, bitter and rueful. His accent thickened when he was upset; sometimes, when he was very distraught, she struggled to understand him. She wasn't sure she had understood half of what he'd said when he was yelling at her in the ready room, although his emotions had certainly been clear enough. "I could've had my own command, if it weren't for you. Now that'll never happen, even if Cap'n Archer doesn't drum us both out of Starfleet altogether."

"I'm sorry," she said earnestly. She wondered if he was going to start yelling again, or if the double dose of sedative would at least spare her that.

"Of course you're sorry. People are always sorry when they make a _bad decision_. I'm sorry too. Just in case you didn't know. You're not exactly turning out to be the best decision _I_ ever made."

"I didn't mean you," she said, barely whispering. "I meant the trellium injections."

"Just the first in a series of bad decisions, I'm sure." He looked away from her, at nothing. There was nothing to see. The white space went on forever, eternally empty but for the two of them. It seemed a fitting metaphor.

"This is why you wanted to watch films about people who escaped from prison," she said, around a lump in her throat. "You are hoping to escape from me."

"Well, I certainly am _now_ ," he snapped. "It was one thing when I thought I actually _meant_ something to you, when I thought there was something _mutual_ there. It kinda changes things, to know that I was really nothing more to you than a moment of addiction-driven weakness." His face twisted in disgust. "What a fool I was."

That, he had also said in the ready room.

The white space was tinged with red. The unbearable pain was everywhere: her chest, her head, her stomach, her shoulders. She had trapped him, without meaning to, without his consent. When he had not known that, they had for a time been able to work things out.

Now, knowing everything, knowing the worst of it, had destroyed everything between them. He wanted only to be free.

She owed him that, really. But at this point, there was only one way to give him back his freedom.

It really was the only logical course of action.

He looked at her sharply. A flicker of concern crossed his face. How comforting, to think that on some level he did still care. Even if it was nothing more than the concern any being would have for another in a time of crisis. She would carry that to the end, and let it give her strength for what she had to do.

"T'Pol?" he said. He leaned across and grabbed her shoulders, giving her a shake. But the white space was already fading away; she could see the familiar outlines of her quarters; she could see the unlit candle. She no longer felt him shaking her.

Back in her quarters, feeling curiously dissociated, she looked around. What would be fastest? She did not possess a knife. She did not keep toxins. Even the trellium she had left elsewhere, thinking that perhaps she would overcome her addiction on her own in the end.

There had to be something.

She went to the wall, feeling along it, and pried loose a panel. She ran her fingers along the EPS conduit there without touching it.

She would have to strip away some of the coating in order to access enough power.

She cast about for something that would serve.

* * *

 _"T'Pol!"_

Trip's eyes snapped open. He was lying in his bunk. Instantly, he was on his feet and out the door, nearly colliding with a crew of workers in the corridor between his quarters and T'Pol's. They shoved and stumbled out of his way. He tripped over one of them, scrambled to his feet, and charged on.

He didn't bother with the annunciator. He let himself in.

She was lying on the floor next to a wall panel, and an open section of the EPS grid.

Trip hammered on the comm. "Phlox! Get down here!"

He dropped to his knees next to T'Pol, feeling for a pulse. He couldn't find one.

He laid her out on her back, opened her airway, and started CPR.

* * *

She was back in the white space, seated across from Trip. He looked wary.

"Don't ever do that again," he said, without anger.

"Where am I?" she asked.

"Sickbay."

"Where are you?"

"Also sickbay. I think Phlox and the Captain were almost as worried about me as they were about you. I think security personnel may have been involved. Also, more sedatives. It's kind of a blur." He looked around appraisingly. "Pretty sure I'm knocked out cold, at the moment."

"You should have let me go," she said.

"Oh, _hell_ no," he replied. "Not a chance."

"I am imprisoning you. You wish to be free of me. I only know of one way to accomplish that. It was logical."

His sentiments regarding that statement involved stronger profanity than she had ever heard him use. She decided it would not be helpful to point out that logic could not copulate.

"T'Pol," he said, looking and sounding just a little bit desperate. "Listen. I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry I yelled at you. I'm sorry I made you cry. I'm sorry I made you think that … that… that _this_ could ever possibly, under any circumstances, be what I would want. I'm sorry."

He was utterly sincere now, unlike earlier, when he had been scornfully throwing her apology back in her face. But she did not want his apology. She did not want his pity, nor his guilt, nor even his kindness. She could not _live_ with just those. "That does not change the fact that I have ruined your career and trapped you in a relationship not of your choosing, as a result of my own bad decisions." She met his gaze, uncertainly. If he truly wanted her gone, then she would certainly make another attempt on her own life — and she would take greater measures to ensure her success, the next time. She could not rest on half-measures now. "As a result of my impaired judgment resulting from my addiction to trellium-D."

He stared down into the space between them, where her candle would be if she were meditating. It was as if the floor had fallen away, and he was staring into a bottomless white abyss. How was it possible that either of them could ever find a way across? If they tried, it would surely kill them both.

"You told me," he said, without looking up, "that it was Sim who told you that I had feelings for you."

"He told me _he_ had feelings for me. He could not speak for you."

"Well. _I_ can speak for me." He looked up at her without raising his head. "I was completely hopeless over you already, before Amanda, and before Sim, and even before that — before the _Seleya_."

She returned his gaze. Her heart ached. She had always thought that humans were engaging in personifying imagery when they said that, but no: the ache was genuinely physical. It really did hurt. A lot. Enough that it was difficult to breathe.

"If it hadn't been for the Expanse, and for the trellium, and for…your…proposition, I don't know that I would have acted on those feelings — Captain Archer's opinion of my self-control notwithstanding, I really do take my position seriously, and I wouldn't ordinarily do anything to jeopardize that." He sat back, looking up, around, everywhere except at her. "What I'm trying to say is…it's not _my_ feelings about _you_ that I have doubts about. I'm not upset because I'm worried that maybe _I_ don't really love _you_."

Their eyes met again, and the pain in her rib cage intensified until she thought it might bring her to tears again.

"I only really feel trapped if…" he looked away again, unable to finish.

"If I do not return your feelings," she finished.

He looked at her. He did not speak.

"This is something you were already concerned about," she said. "This is why you did not tell me you were returning to _Enterprise_ until I demonstrated incontrovertibly my desire for your return."

He was still watching her. She guessed from his expression that his heart was probably hurting, too.

"Trip," she said, and for once the name did not feel awkward on her tongue. "I am new at feeling emotions, and managing them as humans do. I have found them powerful, and overwhelming. I had no names for them, not at first, not for a long time. I did not know what they were, exactly. But there is one that I am certain of, now. I didn't know what it was, but I do know that it has been there for a long time. Since we became close, in the Expanse, at the very latest, but possibly before that." It was still so hard to say it. Did humans find it hard to say? She did not know. "Trip. I love you."

He blinked, and tears ran down his cheeks. Yes, his heart had been hurting, too. Badly enough to bring him to tears.

And just like that, the uncrossable abyss was gone. Just like that, there was no more space between them, and she still could not breathe because he was holding her so tightly, as if he were afraid to loosen his grip; as if he were afraid to ever let her go.


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's note:** Okay y'all, here's the end. If you've been reading but not commenting, I'd love a comment here. Let me know what you think!

* * *

 **10\. The Captain's Decision**

T'Pol woke up in sickbay, in one of the recovery beds. Trip, looking somewhat the worse for wear, was sitting up on the adjacent bed, with his legs hanging over the side. He had a few bruises and contusions he had not had earlier; she wondered where they had come from. He smiled at her, with just a hint of sadness. Just because things were worked out between them did not mean that all else was well.

"Don't ever do that again," he said, and her breath caught, because she feared that she had dreamed their conversation in the white space. But of course she hadn't; he was only repeating himself because she had not given him any assurances there.

"I will not," she promised solemnly.

"Well well well look who's awake!" It was Phlox, annoyingly cheerful, reassuringly welcome. "Commander, I would recommend that from now on you let Commander Tucker deal with any maintenance issues in your quarters, hmmm?" She opened her mouth to correct him, but he talked over the top of her. "I'm sure if you're having any problems, he'll be happy to see to them personally." He smiled at her, the broad upturned corners of his mouth causing his eyes to squinch closed.

She glanced at Trip. "Oh, you bet, doc," he said. He looked at T'Pol with a mock-stern expression and said "If I find out you've been messing with the EPS grid in your quarters again, I may have to arrange to _personally_ keep you under _continuous_ surveillance."

She opened her mouth to protest, understood the implications of what he'd said, and closed her mouth again, perplexed. Was he serious? She could not tell for sure.

But then the Captain arrived, walking through the main sickbay doors, looking down at a PADD.

T'Pol exchanged one last, frightened look with Trip, before they turned to meet their fate.

* * *

Archer walked into sickbay and stopped. Ahead of him, T'Pol was lying in one bed, and Trip was sitting on the bed adjacent. Archer stopped and looked at both of them. They looked nervous. As well they might; their lives were in his hands now. "Doctor. How are our patients?"

"I think they will both be just fine!" Phlox affirmed. "Commander Tucker may return to duty when his next shift begins, and I will probably release Commander T'Pol sometime tomorrow."

"Glad to hear it," Archer said. "Can we have a little privacy?"

"Absolutely, Captain. I'll be in the lab. Just let me know when you're done." Phlox shuffled out, humming to himself.

Archer leaned against one of the counters. "At last report," he said, "She nearly killed you, and you made her cry. So where do matters stand now? Am I going to need more sedatives? Anybody need to be on suicide watch?"

T'Pol looked at Trip, who said, "I think we're feeling a lot better now, sir."

T'Pol nodded assent.

"Glad to hear it," Archer said. In fact, he was very relieved. He had feared that perhaps they had done each other too much harm — although Trip's reaction to T'Pol's close brush with successful suicide had been strangely reassuring on that score. The engineer had been combative and frantic, giving three of Malcolm's security people more than they could handle and requiring a full dose of Phlox's sedative on top of the two smaller doses from earlier before they stopped worrying that he would hurt himself or someone else.

Archer began pacing across in front of the two of them. "I wish the two of you had come to me sooner," he said. "It really bothers me that you both felt you couldn't confide in me."

"For a time, we were not certain ourselves what we were dealing with," T'Pol said. "I am not sure how we would have confided in anyone."

"Fair enough," Archer said. "Still. You could have come to me sooner." He glared at T'Pol. "Maybe when you realized the trellium had become an addiction?" He glared then at Trip. "Or before you transferred to _Columbia_ , perhaps?" He waited, wanting the point to sink in. They had to come out of this trusting each other, or it would be worse the next time, not better. "But that's water under the bridge. Right now, we have to figure out what to do going forward."

He had agonized over this. He could have chosen to ruin them both. He would have been within his rights as their commanding officer to do so; Gardner might even have argued that he had a responsibility to do so. But what would the Illyrians say to him, if they had the chance? Nothing good, certainly. Rather like neither he nor Trip had found anything good to say to T'Pol, once they knew the full extent of her poor decisions in the Expanse.

Archer had always thought that if he could only have a chance, he would try to fix things with the Illyrians.

At least, he had thought so until T'Pol had tried, in the most direct and logical fashion available to her, to "fix" things between her and Trip. And very nearly made things so much worse for the person she wanted most to help.

Maybe, if there had been time, if they had been better able to understand one another, if they could have seen the future more clearly…maybe the Illyrians would have given their warp coil for the billions of lives on Earth. He couldn't know that, of course…but maybe if he could fix things for them, at Earth's expense, they would decide too late that the price had been too high.

Or, maybe not.

There was no way to know, now.

Maybe Phlox was right. Maybe sometimes the only fix, imperfect as it might be, was to go forward, not back, and try to do better in the future.

Apparently Trip and T'Pol had figured out some way to do that.

He had lain awake all night, trying to do the same — for himself, and for them.

He took a step toward Trip. "For now, Trip, I've smoothed things over with Admiral Gardner. I don't think you'd be a good fit for the _Vostok_. In addition, I think it could be a shame to waste your engineering talents on a ship that's bound for mothballing soon anyway. I can make better use of you right here." He held out the PADD to Trip, who took it. "The warp 7 engine project is still a few years down the road at this point, but I wonder if that might not be a better fit for you in the end. Take a look at it, and let me know what you think."

He turned to T'Pol. "I also pointed out to Admiral Gardner that it would look odd — perhaps to the point of an interspecies insult — for Trip to be promoted over you. Unfortunately, for domestic political reasons, offering you a command would probably be unwise right now, which means that for the time being, you're both stuck. So, T'Pol, if Starfleet doesn't come around and offer you your own ship, well, maybe you'd rather look at the possibility of teaching at the STC in a few years? After things calm down a bit, of course; I doubt you want to go to Earth right away. So for the future, I think there might be better opportunities for both of you there — but for the present, I get to keep you both here, which is fine with me." He looked at both of them in turn. "Assuming, of course, that you want to stay?"

T'Pol looked at Trip, who nodded. She looked back at him. "I believe we would both like to remain aboard _Enterprise_ , for the time being."

"Good." They would stay together, here, for the short term, and he had offered them at least one option that might work in the long term.

But there were still practical considerations to address. "Since I have you both here, there are a couple of other things I'd like to go over. T'Pol, I know you were doing some research into Vulcan mate-bonds, after the annulment of your marriage to Koss. If I remember correctly, there wasn't a whole lot of information available, due to taboos that existed under the Vulcan High Command."

T'Pol looked confused — there had been no such sequence of events. He hoped she knew him well enough by now to follow his lead.

"Yes, Captain," she said.

"Thanks to Surak's katra, I may be able to fill in some of those blanks for you," he said. "For one thing, the bonds form exclusively between married couples" — he looked hard at both of them; they had to understand that there was not and never would be an easy out, if they didn't already — "although not all marriages result in the formation of a bond. The formation of a bond seems to require a strong attachment between the two parties. It could happen, I suppose, that two people could be married without being strongly attached to one another, but I very much doubt that two people could be bonded without a very strong attachment to one another."

He paused.

"I see," T'Pol said, without inflection. Archer guessed that she didn't see at all. That was okay; he wasn't done yet.

He continued. "Given the strength of the attachment involved — all of the information available to me suggests that a bond, once formed, is lifelong — I feel quite certain that there would be no need for jealousy or possessiveness on the part of either party. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if any true bond turned out to be more powerful than, say, the pheromones of Orion women."

T'Pol glanced at Trip, who was trying not to look smug — and failing. "I am certain you are correct," she said.

"Something else I've learned," Archer said, "is that a bonded couple requires regular close contact, for the sake of their mutual mental health. Prolonged or long-distance separations are not recommended. I understand that T'Pau is changing the rules in the Vulcan fleet to reflect this reality. Married couples will be permitted to serve together to accommodate it."

He read confusion in their faces. Was he suggesting that they should serve in the Vulcan fleet?

"Now, I don't see that happening anytime soon in Starfleet, but there aren't any married Vulcans in Starfleet that I am aware of. If there were, I suppose they could probably continue to serve together provided they were suitably discreet about the nature of their relationship."

"If the subject ever arises, I will be certain to pass that information along," T'Pol said soberly.

"Good. See that you do." He turned to Trip. "Commander Tucker."

"Sir?"

"I understand that there was some discussion of suspending your neuro-pressure sessions with Commander T'Pol, in order to quell the persistent rumors regarding the true nature of your relationship."

"Um —" Trip cast a confused sidelong glance at T'Pol.

"I don't think Starfleet should concern itself overly with sensationalist tabloid rumors," Archer said. _Not even if there is some truth to them._ But it was only a half-truth, with no nuance, and no complexity, and no hope of doing anything but harm to the people involved. "And I certainly don't intend to do so aboard my ship. And now that I know that Commander T'Pol has herself suffered serious, combat-related injuries in the Expanse — the exact nature of which is, of course, between her and her doctor — and for which Dr. Phlox has recommended regular neuro-pressure sessions…well, I was a little concerned about how exactly to provide the treatment she needs, while she remains on active duty. But from what I understand, she had been teaching you how to perform neuro-pressure. So that probably makes you the only person aboard ship capable of providing the treatment T'Pol needs on an ongoing basis." He gave Trip a measuring look. "If, of course, you're willing."

Trip was having difficulty maintaining an appropriately serious demeanor. "Always happy to return a favor when I can, sir."

"Glad to hear it. T'Pol, this arrangement is acceptable to you?"

"Of course, Captain."

"Good. Then that's settled. I will leave the, um, scheduling details up to the two of you." He looked again at both of them. "But let's get something straight." This was a critical point if things were going to work. "I don't want anyone, on or off the ship, to see _either one of you_ behaving in anything other than a completely straitlaced, professional manner. Do I make myself clear? Starfleet's reputation, my reputation, and both of your careers are riding on this."

"Of course, Captain," T'Pol said.

"Yes sir," Trip said, sounding very subdued.

"I'm pleased to know that you will be _taking good care_ of one another." Archer said. Because he had decided, in the end, that was really all that any of them could hope to do: take good care of one another.

Maybe if they did that, well enough, for long enough, in the end it would be enough. Enough for Trip and T'Pol. Enough for the Illyrians, wherever they were, whatever had become of them.

Enough, even, for him.


End file.
